There are many of us in Fooldom who have nothing but the greatest respect for superinvestor Warren Buffett, chairman of the very successful company Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa, BRKb). We've read a lot about him, and we write a lot about him. For example:
- Manic Market? Be Like Buffett
- Warren Buffett and His 20 Punches
- Warren Buffett: World's Greatest Sandbagger
- Don't Listen to Buffett
We may not understand everything about Buffett (after all, who can really know another person completely?), but every now and then an article appears in the media revealing a commentator who really doesn't understand Buffett. I ran across one of these the other day, and thought I'd take some time to respond to it. I quote the BusinessWeek article:
"Warren Buffett is famous for two things. First, for amassing the second-biggest fortune in the U.S. as one of the most talented investors the world has ever known. Second, for an aversion to spending a dime of that $41 billion on anything but the strictly necessary. That includes declining to provide his kids with fortunes of their own, collecting yachts or racehorses, or giving large chunks of his wealth to worthy causes. Thus it may strike some as the supreme paradox that the man who is one of America's greatest misers in life will probably become one of its greatest philanthropists in death."
Sigh... where do I begin? For starters, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has read a little about Buffett that he plans to give away pretty much all of his fortune to charity. He's simply not giving it all away now. He could give away tens of billions now, or if he waits, he may be able to give away hundreds of billions later. There's no obviously correct thing to do here -- either action has compelling merits.
Next, though he has indeed not given his children massive endowments, he has supported them in their endeavors and has provided some monetary support, as well. He has reportedly said that, "I want to give my kids enough so that they could feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing." That doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
Does the author know for sure that Buffett hasn't spent a dime "on anything but the strictly necessary"? I doubt it. As a student of Buffett, I've read and heard enough to know that he is generous with friends and even strangers -- not necessarily by cutting checks for millions of dollars, but via sharing his time, wisdom, and thoughtful gifts. The author seems to think that necessary items for the wealthy include yachts and racehorses. That's a sad view of the world -- and a mistakenly simplistic one.
The article alluded to other wealthy philanthropists, such as those who made their fortunes via Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), as it suggested that Buffett will join their ranks only because of the death of his wife, whose nest egg of $2.5 billion is en route to the Buffett Foundation. It notes that this gift "vaults Warren to No. 3 on BusinessWeek's third annual ranking of the Top 50 U.S. philanthropists, up from No. 26 last year." It seems to me that anyone who ranked 26th on this list doesn't deserve to be referred to as a miser.
It all just goes to prove: Don't believe everything you read.
Meanwhile, get yourself on the list of the top 50,000,000 donors to charity by learning about our annual Foolanthropy drive and chipping in a little money, if you'd like. There's little time left to be counted among us, and there's a lot of good in the world we can accomplish together.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart.
